A Quick Yet Productive Visit; Card Show Recap #19

The intent behind today's trip to the Woburn Baseball card show wasn't to acquire cards to boost my player collections. However, per usual with my Baseball card purchases, I ended up with a large stack of new additions for many of my PCs.

Rather, there were 2 reasons for my first visit to the Baseball card show for the first time in a month and a half.

The 1st reason was that my Dad and I were both searching for a certain item that I'll recap tomorrow. The 2nd deciding factor was that we wanted to catch up with the vendors at the show whom we hadn't chatted with in a while.

Not only did we find the item that we desired, but the 2 of us searched through an impressive dime bin before departing soon after. The box that we looked through seemed to have a ton of rookie and prospect cards, but that isn't really what my collection is centered around.

Instead, I simply searched for cards of players that I collect and left the rest up to whatever I could find in this box. As always, the bin that I searched through had specific trends, including players and sets that appeared very often.

In this case, Vladimir Guerrero was one of those players who appeared quite often across my search through this dime bin. I was very pleased to track down new cards for this player collection considering that, for whatever reason, I haven't been finding too many Guerrero cards in the dime bins.

Given that the Expos are my favorite all-time ballclub behind the Red Sox and the Cubs, I was happy to find numerous cards showing Guerrero in a Montreal jersey. There are many strong candidates, but the card in the bottom left corner is my favorite of the group, even though I don't know what set it's from.

Theoretically, I should be saving this card for last since it's definitely one of the best cards of the entire purchase, but it seems more fitting to have it alongside the other Vladimir Guerrero cards. From the 1995 Best set, this prospect card is the very first card listed of Vladdy on COMC.

The design is pretty standard no matter how you look at it. Therefore, the best part of this card is that it's a prospect card of one of my favorite all-time players rather than having a compelling design or an intriguing photograph. 

As expected in a modern Baseball card dime box, there was no shortage of different parallels/refractors available, some of which were serial numbered; others were not. 

While I agree that Topps over-produces parallel cards (cough cough insert parallels cough cough), a simple gold bordered card or a base refractor never hurt anybody. Not to mention that I boosted my CC Sabathia player collection, a PC that I don't get the chance to add to all that often.

As I continued to make my way through the dime bins, I observed more and more trends that were taking place. First, I found a sizeable number of Vladimir Guerrero cards. Next, there was a surplus of different Panini Diamond Kings inserts from the past few years. 

Just like my CC Sabathia collection, it's not super often that I add to my Tony Perez and Orlando Cepeda PCs. Additionally, I'm usually skeptical of willingly purchasing unlicensed cards unless they're above my expectations. 

Needless to say, these Diamond Kings inserts, featuring retired players, were able to fit the bill.

Although these Gypsy Queen inserts only lasted 1 year, I still applaud the effort of Topps' artists for taking the time to create these beautiful cards 2 years after the set's release. Labeled as Hand-Drawn Art Reproductions, each player in this set receives not 1, but 2 different cards, featuring different pictures and colors in the background. 

My guess is that these cards were too reminiscent of Allen & Ginter cards to return for another year, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating the attention to detail on these gorgeous inserts.

As long as I'm discussing insert cards from 2017 Topps Gypsy Queen, it's critical that I point out one of the most creative card sets that I've ever seen; the Fortune Teller insert cards. Returning to Gypsy Queen for a 3rd straight year in 2019, these unique cards make bold predictions about what players will achieve by the end of their season. 

The 2017 card design isn't anything out of the ordinary, but the cards get the job done. Both the 2018 and 2019 styles embody the Gypsy Queen product way more. Out of all the decisions that I made today regarding dime cards, adding all of these Fortune Teller inserts to my stack was one of the easiest choices that I had to make.

The 2018 Bowman Platinum product featured one of the most interesting set designs of last year. Showcasing a black background combined with a colorful swirl, these cards depart from the traditional rainbow foil cardstock that we've become so accustomed to seeing.

Even though I obtained only a handful of 2018 Bowman Platinum cards last year, I ranked this product at #6 on my sets of 2018 ranking, ahead of cards like Topps Big League. Now, after seeing even more of these cards in person, I'm confident that I made the right choice, judging solely by the base set design.

Unlike the 2018 Bowman Platinum set, I didn't think too highly of the 2017 Topps Gold Label set when it was released. In fact, I placed this product 2nd to last at #15 back when I ranked the sets of 2017. Since then, I've come to appreciate this set more than I originally did, mainly due to all the retired players in this product.

The Gold Label set is separated by different classes with 1 being the most common, followed by 2, and 3 being the rarest class within the product. All of the cards above are from the 1st class, something you can notice by the faint writing on the lefthand side of the cards.

There were no class 3 cards available in this dime box, but I found an equal number of class 2 cards as class 1. Although the only difference, to my knowledge, is the choice of images, these cards are slightly rarer than the first group, but that's not something that I care too much about, especially when we're talking about dime cards.

I'm not sure if this is coincidental, but all of the class 2 cards above feature alternate jerseys. On the other hand, the group of class 1 cards is composed solely of home uniforms. It's quite possible that the rarer cards in the set feature more intriguing uniforms and photographs.

As I discussed earlier, this dime box included an insane number of rookie and prospect cards, a dream come true for a lot of collectors. Personally, I'm more into finding cards that I like rather than building up rookie and prospect card collections, but I did select a few standouts to add to my stack. 

Among them was a card of Corey Seager that I don't have in my collection yet, a rookie card from the 2016 Bowman set.

I'd safely bet that I'll never open a 1-pack box of Topps Inception ever in my life unless I win the lottery jackpot. Like most of Topps' high-end products, I rely heavily on the dime bins to provide me a sample of what the product looks like.

Even though the 2018 Inception set was released roughly 1 year ago, it doesn't bother me whatsoever that I'm getting my first look at the product today. The base cards look so impressive that it almost makes me want to buy a box of these high-end cards.

Finally, to end the look at this wide variety of dime cards, I have one final high-end card, this time from 2013 Topps Tribute. This may not be my first World Baseball Classic card from Topps Tribute, but Stanton is the best player that I've landed so far. 

Representing Team USA, this card will be an excellent addition to my Giancarlo Stanton PC which is currently hovering around 65 total cards.

Per usual, I was very pleased with the outcome of this trip to the dime bins. However, the main thing that I came to the card show for earlier today is yet to be shown. That's something that I'll be saving for tomorrow.

Card Shows > COMC Sales; Card Show Recap #15

After what was a relatively long debate, it was decided that I would skip the annual COMC Black Friday sale and instead, take a trip to the once-a-month or so Mansfield sports card show. Rather than waiting in line with dozens of other people at a Target or some other store, I'd much rather be at a baseball card show, searching bins of cards.

I'll spend the next couple days or so to talk about how special this show was, but I'll start off with something that I search for at nearly every show I've ever attended.

Dime boxes.

Yes, even at a card show with around 70-80 vendor tables, I still couldn't resist the urge to go through a row of my favorite dime boxes at the show from a dealer I've been doing business with as long as I can remember. Plus, due to how crowded his booth was, he allowed me to take a box into the hallway and pick out what I wanted there. How could I possibly say no?

Even though I'm not actively collecting the massive set that is Panini Chronicles, I'm piecing it together with whatever I can find for a good enough price. That said, I wasn't expecting the 2 per hobby box Spectra cards to be in the dime bins, let alone a parallel of one of them numbered out of 99. 

Consisting of all rookies, the 4 Spectra cards I found were definitely a shock, but I knew that even though I don't collect any of the players and will likely never complete the set, they'd make awesome additions to my collection of 2018 Panini Chronicles cards.

While I'm talking about unlicensed cards, I should definitely make note of the abundance of Panini Donruss Optic parallel cards in the dime boxes today with specific players appearing more so than others. In fact, I spotted 3 players with 2 different parallels in the bin, the first being Salvador Perez. The orange is not numbered while the aqua parallel is serial numbered out of 299 copies.

Next up is Dallas Keuchel, the free agent lefty who I also picked up a duo of Donruss Optic parallels of. The orange on the left is the same as Perez's first parallel while the 2nd is some sort of orange and yellow combination that I can't seem to identify, but it too is not serial numbered.

Finally, the last of the 3 players is Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard who, unlike Perez and Keuchel, had 2 different numbered cards as opposed to 1 or 2 non-numbered parallels. First up is what I believe to be a red parallel numbered out of 199 while the 2nd card is a Diamond Kings card with another parallel that I can't seem to identify. That one is numbered 50/50, a true steal for only a dime.

Wrapping up a majority of what I picked up for unlicensed cards is a duo of Panini Donruss Aurora inserts from 2018, an insert set I'm very pleased Panini decided to bring back. Like the 2017 versions, the Aurora inserts are vibrant with tons of bright and eye-catching colors. The 2 players I picked up, Ichiro and Buster Posey, are both at or very near 100 cards with Ichiro currently closing in on 200.

Speaking of top-tier players collections, guys like Ichiro and Ken Griffey Jr. benefited from the dime boxes, as usual, this time with cards from the 2007 Bowman's Best set. Like the Aurora cards, the 4 guys of whom I found Bowman's Best cards are all players I heavily collect, 3 of them being Gold Tier PCs.

Bowman's Best was far from all that I brought back of high-end cards. A couple 2013 Topps Tribute World Baseball Classic cards found their way into the bin which was met with appreciation on my part. After deciding only 2 picks up cards of guys I collect, 3 players (Joey Votto, Jimmy Rollins, and Miguel Tejada) were chosen, players from 3 different countries (Canada, Dominican Republic, and the U.S.).

Rounding out the rest of the high-end cards I brought back is another addition to my Corey Seager player collection which has become abundant with lots of prospect cards, parallels, and rookie cards. This time, the newest addition is a Topps Museum card from his rookie 2016 season.

With all the various sets put out, especially by Fleer and Donruss, in the early 2000s, it's difficult for me to be familiar with each and every one of them. Up until today, I had little to no knowledge of the Donruss Greats set having only recognized 1 year or so of the set. 

With the help of these 4 cards from 2 different sets, I'm able to gain the slightest bit more knowledge of past released and picked up some nice cards for a few '70s and '80's PCs while I was at it.

I suppose the same could be said for this set from 1996 though I'm still not certain what the set is referred to as. Even so, knowing the name would help my understanding of the confusing decade of cards that is the 1990's. Plus, once again, I'm able to boost a couple player collections along the way.

The things I've been talking about are major aspects of what makes the dime bins so enjoyable and interesting to look through, even if it means limiting the number of new vendors I'd get to do business with. By finding new products and insert sets, I'm able to develop a deeper understanding of the crazy and sometimes overwhelming hobby of collecting cards.

Guys like Vladimir Guerrero were examples of common denominators between the 2 different insert sets I found from the 2001 Upper Deck Vintage product, the first year of that specific Upper Deck set.  The simple black and red combo make the Retro Rules cards appealing, but it's the font used for Matinee Idols that makes the card look almost like a comic book, especially with the green or red color in the background.

If I'm not mistaken, 2014 was the very first year of the revived Topps High Tek brand, a set that's been going strong with 5 different releases and the creation of Bowman High Tek, both of which have become extremely popular with higher-end collectors.

The different patterns made me pay extra attention when looking through these cards of Nomar Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez, just to make sure I was taking advantage of all the different variations these cards have. There appear to be 2 different parallels among the 2 players above, meaning I found 2 different patterns for both players. Not too bad.

I've been a dime card buyer for so many years now that it barely surprises me anymore to see somewhat recently released products already in the dime bins with even parallels and insert cards appearing there. While it wasn't a huge surprise, I gladly added cards from 2018 Topps Stadium Club insert sets into my player collections. Though Stadium Club isn't necessarily known for insert cards, I'm a big fan of this years' Power Zone design.

Finally, while I'm talking Stadium Club, I might as well bring up my favorite card from the entire dime box purchase; a Stadium Club Chrome Clayton Kershaw from 2018. another card I was baffled to see in a box where each card was just a dime.

Stadium Club Chrome cards are some of the more underrated cards you'll ever see along with Heritage Chrome. They don't get the recognition they deserve, yet they're also extremely rare meaning that you don't see them all that often. Seeing one in the dime bins is pretty special, but the fact that it's Clayton Kershaw elevates it to a whole new level.

Some of the Best Dime Bins Ever; Card Show Recap #13

All in all, I was disappointed when I didn't see any dime boxes at the card show I attended a couple weeks ago. A staple at the show I regularly attend, the dealer that usually provides the show's best dime boxes stated that the lack of space at the show that day was the reason why he was unable to bring them with.

This time, the show was back in a larger-sized room and with that came the return of the dime bins. As soon as I walked into the card show today, 3 3200-count boxes chock-full of dime cards came into sight, and I instantly decided that today was going to be a dime box day.

Maybe it's because I haven't gone through dime boxes in months, but these bins seemed better than usual. In fact, I'd go as far as to say these were some of the best dime boxes I've looked through in a while, maybe even ever. Though I can't say the bins specialized in oddballs, I was able to find a decent selection of oddball cards, ranging from Metalic Snowflake parallels to Heritage Minor League.

Above all, these particular dime bins were perfect for finding a large collection of cards from specific sets. Oddly enough, 2008 Upper Deck Spectrum was one of those sets this time around with these 4 player collections benefiting from that. The selection from the set ranged from 2 100-card player collections (Vlad and Chipper) to a smaller player collection that I refuse to give up on, Dice-K.

Similarly, a set that I'm not too familiar with, 2004 Fleer Hot Prospects, dominated a good deal of one of the dime box rows with well over 20 cards, around 15 of which I grabbed for my various PCs. It faintly reminds me of Fleer Patchworks from around the same time, or maybe one or two of the Upper Deck Sweet Spot sets produced over the years. 

Even high-end base cards made their way into these dime bins which definitely surprised me as I hadn't seen this number of high-end of products in over a year. It's always a bit of a treat, if nothing else, to find sets like 2017 Topps Museum present in the dime boxes since there's certainly no other way I'd track down cards from this ultra-expensive product.

Even super high-end 2018 cards made their way into these boxes in the form of Topps Tribute base cards, making this my first but hopefully not final look at the product. As you can see, there was a balance between past and present players and even attention put into the photo choice. From the cards that I chose, there were no plain uniforms shown on the cards. All of them had a good deal of color.

In addition to base cards, refractors and parallels were also present in the dime boxes from all sorts of different sets. Opening Day and Chrome are shown above, but Bowman and Gallery were also included in addition to the bronze parallel of Ichiro that was alongside the rest of the 2017 Topps Museum cards. 

Curt Flood and Ron Santo seem to be often forgotten players from the 1970's, hence why my Curt Flood collection is relatively small and why my Ron Santo PC is nowhere near the totals of other Cubs greats he played alongside with. Both of them are examples of players I get excited when finding new cards of them, so today must've been my lucky day in the dime boxes.

These 2016 Topps Opening Day Bubble Trouble inserts were pretty hard to pull at 1 per box, and I hadn't seen one of them since pulling a Dominic Brown card out of my box of this 2 years ago. Flashforward over 2 years and I'm finally adding on to cards from this insert set.

But without a doubt, this would have to be the best dime card of the entire day, and that's a pretty bold statement given the selection of cards in the boxes today. Vida Blue is another example of a player who I don't often see cards of at the show, nevermind one with so much color and from such an interesting set. I'm crazy about these 70's Athletics jerseys, and I'm equally as fond of these Sports Illustrated cover cards. 

When you put those 2 factors together, you get a card that can't even be beaten by high-end modern cards.